Russia's Sibur starts online polymer trading

MOSCOW (ICIS news)--Russia's major petrochemical holding Sibur has launched a new online polymer trading platform to improve efficiency and cut costs, the company said on Monday.

Despite the ongoing financial crisis and plummeting domestic polymer prices, Sibur has started sales of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and polypropylene (PP) via its corporate electronic trading platform, the company said in a statement.

Sibur controls ?xml:namespace>Russia's Tomskneftekhim, which produced 215,400 tonnes of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and 110,600 tonnes of polypropylene (PP) last year, according to the statement.

Although some of Russia's leading polymer producers have been reported cutting production volumes, Sibur has yet to announce output cuts.

However, in September the management team of Sibur and Gazprombank, the banking subsidiary of the gas giant Gazprom, suspended their preliminary $5.4bn MBO agreement, citing adverse market conditions.